BAY CITY, MI — In the past year, an Essexville boy has undergone three surgeries to mend injuries he suffered when a Bay City park gate fell onto him.

Now, his family is trying to ensure no one else falls victim to a similar accident.

The Prokopenko family on May 26, 2012, visited Liberty Harbor Marina in Veterans Memorial Park, hoping to enjoy a cookout with friends as part of Memorial Day weekend. As dusk settled in, 6-year-old Easton M. Prokopenko started walking a friend’s dog, heading south out of the boat dock toward a closed metal gate. Easton reached forward to grab the gate’s handle and pulled it open.

“That gate fell right off the hinges and fell back toward him,” said the boy’s father, Mark Prokopenko. “He was able to spin a little bit to avoid it coming right directly at him.”

The rectangular gate landed on Easton’s right leg, breaking his femur.

Bystanders rushed to the boy’s help. It took multiple people to lift the gate off Easton. His father estimated it weighed 200 to 300 pounds. Easton didn’t initially realize the severity of his injury.

“The first thing he said was, ‘Is the dog OK?’” his father said.

An ambulance took Easton to Covenant HealthCare in Saginaw. To mend the fracture, Easton had a metal plate inserted in his leg with 11 screws attaching it to his femur. The plate stayed in Easton’s leg for nine months and was removed in mid-February.

Between those two surgeries, Easton contracted a staph infection requiring another operation.

“He was having an adverse reaction to the stitch, and he ended up getting MRSA,” Prokopenko said. “They ended up going back in (in August), taking that stitch out and putting a different stitch in, and then it healed. Fortunately, the infection was just on the surface and didn’t go into the tissue.”

A soft-spoken boy who loves playing outdoors, Easton spent about six weeks in a wheelchair before progressing to a walker, which he still is using.

Easton, now 7, has to continue taking it easy for at least the next six weeks to allow the 11 holes in his femur, left by the screws, to close.

Mark Prokopenko and his wife, Debbie, have contacted attorney Jeffrey M. Day, who has been in discussions with Bay City representatives since July in hopes of preventing such a freak accident from injuring another person.

“We just want to make sure it doesn’t happen to anybody else and that whatever was the issue down there has been addressed,” Day said. “It could have been a lot worse.”

No lawsuit has been filed, and Day said he hopes to avoid going that route. Day said he wants the city to explain how the accident happened and to demonstrate all such gates have been improved to prevent a repeat occurrence.

“Some compensation to the family is in order as well,” Day continued. “Mark’s lucky in that they’re insured. He’s had some out-of-pocket expenses in terms of overages.”

An MLive reporter visited the marina on Feb. 21, and the gates appeared to have been reinforced. Prokopenko, with the reporter at the time, said the fastenings on the gates appeared sturdier than they were in May.

Bay City Parks Manager Darwin Baranski said he could not comment on the matter because of the potential of pending litigation.

Prokopenko said that despite his son’s misfortune, he is grateful it wasn’t worse, saying that if the gate had fallen on Easton’s head, he very well could have died.

“There was an older gentleman down there, and he was just about in tears when this happened,” Prokopenko recalled. “He said, ‘My God, I’ve had my 6- and 7-year-old grandkids. We’ve been walking through that gate for the last three days, and I’m so fortunate nothing happened to them.’”